He was awarded $51 million as part of the settlement of his qui tam action under the False Claims Act. The FCA permits private parties to sue for false claims against government entities and to share in any recovery.

“The whistleblower became Olympus’s first compliance officer in company history in 2009,” Slowik’s lawyers said.

“The newly-minted compliance officer quickly discovered that kickbacks formed the fabric from which Olympus’s sales and marketing success was woven,” they said.

In the first case, the company’s Latin America unit paid a criminal fine of $22.8 million for FCPA violations. The DOJ said Olympus employees bribed doctors across Latin America to buy Olympus endoscopes, a device usually used to examine the digestive tract.

In the second case, Olympus Corporation of the Americas or OCA paid a $312.4 million criminal penalty for violating the federal Anti-Kickback Statute. The DOJ said the company bribed doctors in the United States to increase sales.

In the third case, based on Slowik’s whistleblower lawsuit, OCA paid an additional $310.8 million to settle civil state and federal charges under the False Claims Act.

For that settlement Slowik was awarded $51 million — $44 million from the federal share of the settlement amount and $7 million from the state share.

Funneling cash payments of up to $100,000 a year to certain “VIP” doctors for “consulting services” at the discretion of Olympus sales and marketing representatives.

Annual cash payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars characterized as “grants” to fund educational or research programs made at the discretion of a grant committee comprised solely of Olympus sales and marketing personnel and based on sales potential.

Funding luxury, all-expense paid vacations to Japan and other international destinations for “VIP” doctors and sometimes their spouses in exchange for purchases and promotion of Olympus medical products.

Lawyer Kathryn Schilling said, “Our client is the only person to ever step forward and alert corporate executives, and then the government, to the kickback schemes Olympus commenced a decade ago. These schemes . . . most likely would have continued unabated had our client not alerted the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office and DOJ to all he knew.”

Compliance officers have also become whistleblowers to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In April 2015, the SEC awarded about $1.5 million to a compliance professional who provided information for an enforcement action against the whistleblower’s company.

The award went to a compliance officer “who had a reasonable basis to believe that disclosure to the SEC was necessary to prevent imminent misconduct from causing substantial financial harm to the company or investors,” the SEC said.

Founder of the FCPA Blog and Editor at Large. He has been named multiple times as one of the 100 Most Influential People In Business Ethics by Ethisphere Magazine and is a Trust Across America Top Thought Leader. He’s a member of the DC, Virginia, and Florida bars. His At Large column is a regular feature of the FCPA Blog.

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